The Trump Administration's Self-Inflicted Problem: Why Repealing CEQ Regulations Will Delay Infrastructure and Energy Development

July 2025

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John C. Ruple, Justin Pidot, and Jamie Pleune

For the first time in nearly 50 years, following the federal government's recission of CEQ's NEPA implementing regulations on April 11, 2025, there are no governmentwide regulations in place to provide consistent direction to all federal agencies on how to implement the governmentwide procedural obligations established by NEPA. This Comment explains the costs of eliminating the common floor that the CEQ regulations had established for federal agencies conducting the environmental analyses required to comply with NEPA’s statutory mandate, and why those costs need not have been incurred.

John C. Ruple is a Research Professor of Law and Director of the Wallace Stegner Center’s Law and Policy Program at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. Justin Pidot is the Ashby Lohse Chair in Water & Natural Resources and Co-Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. Jamie Pleune is an Associate Research Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law and Deputy Director of the Wallace Stegner Center’s Law and Policy Program.